Marking Planetary Surface Coordinates

[T'Kitr]

When I land on a planet and go roaming in my SRV (which, by the way, I've only recently started doing and wish I'd realised earlier that it's so much fun), I'll occasionally stumble across fraggable-mineable rocks or stashes of goodies or shipwrecks to salvage, and so on.

The game already includes a handy feature in being able to summon your ship - but I find the ship invariably lands a long way away, and by the time I've trekked back to it I've forgotten where the salvage site was. There are the tyre tracks, which are a lovely touch, and if I'm lucky I can follow those back - but say I want to pick the ship up and take it over to the site. Sometimes - and maybe it's my graphics settings, or the surface material, or the lighting, or whatever - I can't see my SRV's tyre 'road', and I get lost.

Could we have some sort of waypointing system aboard our ships? Either the ability to set custom co-ordinates, either by typing them in or by clicking 'set' when we're sitting at the right spot? Or maybe even just some sort of beacon the SRV can drop and then pick up later?

(Ideally I'd prefer the former since coupled with the planetary mapping scans it'd be good to be able to set destination coordinates remotely and see the location marked on the planet surface as you approach in supercruise/orbital cruise.)

Obviously if such a feature already exists and I just missed it, I'll offer an apology and ask for someone to explain it to me.

 

[Alec Turner]

Good one! There are now so many requests for being able to set planetary surface "bookmarks" that I'd be very surprised if we don't see this feature in the next season of QoL improvements to the game.

 

[T'Kitr]

Good one! There are now so many requests for being able to set planetary surface "bookmarks" that I'd be very surprised if we don't see this feature in the next season of QoL improvements to the game.

That would be good to see.

My apologies for the duplication.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Sandro has commented on this (from my blog here).

In response to a question about having “droppable beacons to bookmark specific coordinates/locations on planets (visible to the player only)” Sandro replied,


“We want this and have done for a little while, but its finding the right time and feature to slide it in with”

 

[Lord Hexias]

Sandro definitely wants this, as Barking_Mad demonstrated. I just wish they'd toss it into the next update and be done with it. Waypointing is such a basic mechanic that it's difficult to believe Frontier haven't placed it in the game at this point.

 

[Alec Turner]

Sandro definitely wants this, as Barking_Mad demonstrated. I just wish they'd toss it into the next update and be done with it. Waypointing is such a basic mechanic that it's difficult to believe Frontier haven't placed it in the game at this point.

Hear hear ... "right time and feature" my Asp ... time was when bookmarks were first implemented and "feature to slip it in with" ? it's a feature in and of itself, no other reason for it to be in the game is required.

 

[FarrSide]

I get over this problem by using the compass. I am at a salvage site and I recall my ship. When it lands I point the SRV and drive toward the ship noting the compass bearing. On reaching my ship and transferring the loot. I drive back to the salvage site using the reciprocal bearing. eg. if your bearing from the site to the ship is at 90 degrees, then the return bearing from your ship back to the site is 270 degrees. Works for me
07 FarrSide

 

[T'Kitr]

I get over this problem by using the compass. I am at a salvage site and I recall my ship. When it lands I point the SRV and drive toward the ship noting the compass bearing. On reaching my ship and transferring the loot. I drive back to the salvage site using the reciprocal bearing. eg. if your bearing from the site to the ship is at 90 degrees, then the return bearing from your ship back to the site is 270 degrees. Works for me
07 FarrSide

This would be an obvious workaround until something gets built into the game, and it's something I should just stop complaining and do. It's basically just laziness on my part: my mental maths has never been great and I can't be bothered to tab out of the game to use a calculator - or worse still, actually get off my actual butt and pick up an actual physical one.

In the end, it's basically just... (whisper it) an immersion thing. As Lord Hexias said, it's such a basic mechanic it's baffling why it isn't already there. But as with many things about this game, I'd settle for having it put in after the fact.

 

[FarrSide]

This would be an obvious workaround until something gets built into the game, and it's something I should just stop complaining and do. It's basically just laziness on my part: my mental maths has never been great and I can't be bothered to tab out of the game to use a calculator - or worse still, actually get off my actual butt and pick up an actual physical one.

In the end, it's basically just... (whisper it) an immersion thing. As Lord Hexias said, it's such a basic mechanic it's baffling why it isn't already there. But as with many things about this game, I'd settle for having it put in after the fact.

Its not complicated maths. If the bearing is less than 180 degrees add 180, if the bearing is greater than 180 degrees subtract 180 to get the reciprocal bearing.
good luck
07
FarrSide

 

[CMDR Yates]

The game desperately needs this.

I wonder if part of the reason we don't have it yet is because of the randomly spawning POIs. At one point, if you landed next to a crashed ship or satellite, then logged off and back in, the object would have disappeared, because most are randomly generated when the area loads, as opposed to being procedural. I haven't tried this in a while, so I'm not sure if it's still the case, but if so, being able to bookmark points on surfaces would just highlight this limitation in the game, flood FD with complaints about missing POIs when Commanders returned to find them gone, and break immersion pretty badly.